Fingers

It's been hot in our bedroom again this week. Not unbearably so, but hot none-the-less. We have two windows in our room, which create a nice, cool, airflow once the sun goes down. Most nights we go to sleep with the windows open, and at some point I have to get up and close them because of the noise from Broadway.

It's interesting, during the day, I don't notice much noise from Broadway. Yes, we live next to a thoroughfare, but for the most part all I hear are my kids, the washing machine, the beeper on the microwave and the cars in front of our house on 5th street. But late at night, when all the other noises of the day are quieted, the noise from the thoroughfare begins to creep into my conscious thoughts. One night at 2am it was a police officer on his speaker telling someone named "Michael" to do something. Other nights it's the train that barrels through Salem on a regular schedule. (You would be amazed how many nights I DON'T notice the train - you get used to it) Often it's sirens that I hear - day and night. However, last night it was a man's voice in conversation just beyond our hedge. It subtly settled into my brain and I woke, somewhat confused, wondering what was bugging me. Oh, it was the ongoing sound of a man's voice close to my bedroom window - unsettling!

I crept out of bed to close the window - somehow not wanting him to hear me shut the window. I don't know why. Maybe because I was in my nightgown. Maybe because it felt unnerving to have a stranger 15 feet from my window, and I didn't want him to know I was there. Maybe it was because Jeff was still asleep in bed. Whatever the reason, I was trying to close the bedroom window quietly.

I failed to mention earlier in the post that we live in a very old house, therefore we have very old windows. In the cottage, where we sleep, the windows are probably 60 to 70 years old. They are not replaced with new vinyl windows. They are old, heavy wood windows, and the internal weight that is meant to balance the window and make it easy to open and close was cut, or broken, long, long ago. These are the kind of windows that you have to grunt to open and put a stick under to keep open. They are also the kind of windows that are sometimes hard to close. So hard to close that at times you have to open them a little further in order to get them to go down.

Such was the case last night when I was trying to quietly slide out the stick that holds it up and gently lower the window down. It stuck, hard. I tried down, I tried up. It wasn't budging. I put a little more strength into it and it finally moved - up - hard. I quickly found myself in a position I've never been in before. The window had gone up so hard and so fast, that it had slammed my fingers against the top part of the window frame, and stuck fast. Both my hands were stuck and I couldn't get the window down.

In case you don't know this about me, I don't like the feeling of being stuck. I like freedom to move and wide open spaces to move about. I prefer a meadow to a forest - and I never plan to sleep in our four person tent again. The momentary panic of having both hands trapped a foot above my head in a window was quickly relieved by wiggling out my right hand. However, try as I might, I couldn't get my left hand free.

"Jeff" I said, "I need you." He was at my side before I finished asking, but he was dead asleep and it took him a minute to shake off the cobwebs enough to understand what I was telling him. "My hand is stuck. Do NOT push the window UP. It needs to come DOWN." He got the picture and tried to tug the window down, but it wouldn't budge. Any good husband worth his salt knows that when your wife has her hand stuck in the bedroom window at 12:30am, you do what it takes to get it out. My Farmer, being an excellent husband, banged hard on the window until it rattled loose and released it's hold on my fingers. While I was grateful to be released, my first thought was about the man in the alley and that he for sure would have heard that banging.

Undoubtedly the man in the alley did hear the banging, and was as startled to realize people were so near as I was to have him there, because I quickly heard a car door shut and the car drive off. As I fell back into bed, my brain went in a predictable direction: what to do in case my fingers ever get trapped again.

My imagination kicked into gear, and before I knew it, I had myself stuck with no kids home and not being able to get help. How long could I last there without food? How could I call 911 if my fingers were stuck in a window? And would it be appropriate to call 911 for such a trivial thing even if I could? I mean, having your fingers stuck in a window is hardly an emergency, unless you can't get unstuck!! And if the kids were home, what should I have them do? Obviously, they could bring me bread and water so I didn't starve - they truly are caring kids - but what would be the appropriate way to handle the situation? There's the question, again, of 911. It feels like overkill to me - but would I have my children going door-to-door on our street looking for a neighbor who would be so kind as to come to our house and try to loose me from my window prison? They could of course call My Farmer. . . perhaps that's the best solution.

The return of sleep saved me from needing to solve this problem at 12:30 last night. Things in the daytime are so much clearer. I think I'll just try to keep my fingers off the top of the window and out of the way of being stuck. What is it they say, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?"